CME Educational Programs & Services

programs | online resources | event cosponsorship

Having a demographically diverse campus community is educationally important (cf. Gurin for University of Michigan), and has been the focus of much quality scholarship and programming in US higher education through the second half of the Twentieth Century, especially around sex/gender and race/ethnicity. Such compositional diversity, including a much wider diversity of identities, is a necessary but insufficient element of Inclusive Excellence.

Similarly, in-group time (affinity-based organizations and events) is helpful to many, as a familiar source of comfort and support, especially to those in numerical and/or power minorities.

However, using the well-known “salad” metaphor, it is not enough simply to have all the individual ingredients present in the kitchen; they must also come together for their still-distinct colors, textures and flavors to create an engaging and nourishing dish. Having diverse individuals learning, living and working on campus is little more than cosmetics, if they do not interact across identities, or if their interaction is infrequent, superficial or outright negative.

Therefore at DU, in addition to our work with specific, historically excluded populations, the Center for Multicultural Excellence also provides a variety of programs and services focused on preparing our community for and creating positive interactions across a wide variety of campus communities.

Programs

We offer a wide variety of ongoing and occasional educational programs, including:

• CO-LEADS regional social justice leadership summit (fall)
• Community Voices  topical dialogue evenings (quarterly)
• Diversity & Unity Retreat off-campus, overnight introduction to social justice concepts (fall quarter)
• Flick & Feed/Back pop culture discussions (each quarter, formerly Dinner & A Movie)
• Joint Council student organization collective
• Training & Consulting services for students, employees, organizations, classrooms and offices (by request and open sessions)
• Train the Trainer: pilot, by-application program training graduate students to facilitate various CME programs and presentations. Will be expanded to prepare undergraduates, staff and faculty as peer facilitators.
• Voices of Discovery multi-session inter/group dialogues (expanding to fall, winter & spring quarters)

Please click on the respective program/service above for more information.

Online Resources

We are also working to expand the number and variety of online resources available through this website, to help Pioneers connect with information, organizations and opportunities to broaden and deepen their experience in sharing across our similarities and differences, such as:

• Bulletin Boards in a Bag: monthly history, heritage and broader informational displays for download/print (coming soon)
• by Identity resources: compilation of campus and community offices, organizations and more. (See on-campus and off-campus lists already available for/about LGBTIQA communities.)

Suggest and watch for information you think would be helpful to have handy.

Event Co/Sponsorship

CME also co/sponsors special events that actively bring together our diverse communities, to engage positively and intentionally across differences. A past example is More Light: Sharing Stories of Sexuality & Spirituality (April 2011)--building on issues raised by the film Prayers for Bobby, participants shared personal stories about the intersection and mutual influence of sexual orientation and faith identities. Cosponsored with DU Gender & Women's Studies and the University Chaplain.

We are developing a new cosponsorship request process, and will have it online during Fall 2012. In the meanwhile, if your office/organization is interested in co-programming, please contact us at 303.871.2942 or igr@du.edu. Please note: Simply inviting a variety of communities to attend an event is not our goal; we seek to create and support programs where active and intentional intergroup interaction (e.g., discussion) is part of the event process, not simply having diveristy as a subject matter.